Test: April 2022 Weekly Current Affair - 1 - UPSC MCQ

The Union Cabinet has approved USD 808 million (₹6,062.45 crore) for a new scheme ‘Raising and Accelerating MSME Performance’ (RAMP).
The new scheme assisted by the World Bank is expected to commence in the financial year of 2022-23. It aims to improve access to market and credit of the MSMEs. It focuses on strengthening institutions and governance of the MSME programme, and support to market access and access to finance.

United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) recently released the ‘State of World Population: Seeing the Unseen: The case for action in the neglected crisis of unintended pregnancy’ Report.
As per the report, nearly half of all pregnancies, totalling 121 million each year throughout the world, are unintended. Globally, an estimated 257 million women who want to avoid pregnancy are not using safe and modern methods of contraception.

India and Australia signed an Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (IndAus ECTA). It seeks to provide -duty access to 96 per cent of India’s exports to Australia.
The exports include engineering goods, gems and jewellery, textiles, apparel and leather. The pact is expected to boost bilateral trade in goods and services to USD 45-50 billion over five years and generate over one million jobs in India.

As per the ‘Hurun Richest Self-Made Women in the World 2022’, there are 124 self-made women billionaires in the world now, down 6 from last year.
Three Indian women – Falguni Nayar of Nykaa, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw of Biocon and Radha Vembu of Zoho feature in the latest Hurun list of women self-made billionaires. Falguni Nayar overtook long-time India’s number one woman billionaire Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw to become the richest self-made woman in India.

India recently celebrated the 59th National Maritime Day which falls on April 5 every year. This year’s theme is ‘Sustainable Shipping beyond Covid-19’.
The first anniversary of the day was held in 1964 to raise awareness about international trade and economy. An award ceremony is held to honour those who made important contributions to the Indian maritime industry.

Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav launched “Prakriti”, mascot that spreads awareness about small changes in life that can curb plastic pollution.
It also highlights various green initiatives taken by Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change and Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to ensure effective Plastic Waste Management (PWM) in the country.

Konkan Railway has recently completed 100 per cent electrification across the zone and it has set new benchmarks for sustainable development.
The Konkan Railway has completed the electrification work on its complete 741 km long route between Roha in Maharashtra and Thokur in Karnataka. The cost of this electrification project is Rs 1287 crore.

The Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana launched digital platform ‘Fast and Secured Transmission of Electronic Records’ (FASTER).
The platform would be used by the court officials to instantly to send e-copies of the orders to intended parties, through a secured electronic communication channel. It covers all types of orders of the court.

Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has declared a nationwide public emergency amidst protests over the worst economic crisis in the island nation.
The special gazette notification declared a public emergency in Sri Lanka with immediate effect from April 1. The residents are facing shortages in fuel, cooking gas, essentials in short supply and long hours of power cuts.

Arunachal Pradesh signed a pact with WWF India to develop the State Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (SBSAP).
The SBSAP will be aligned with the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework and Pakke Declaration. The state cabinet adopted the ‘Pakke Tiger Reserve 2047 Declaration on Climate Change Resilient and Responsive Arunachal Pradesh’, last year.

Ministry of Finance oversees the ‘Stand Up India Scheme’, which aims to promote entrepreneurship among women, Scheduled Castes (SC) & Scheduled Tribes (ST) categories, to help them in starting a Greenfield enterprise.
The scheme has completed six years and loans worth more than ₹30,160 crore have been sanctioned in the last six years. Over 1.33 lakh new entrepreneurs have been facilitated and more than 1 lakh women promoters have benefitted from this Scheme during the last six years.

The 2022 update of the World Health Organization’s air quality database highlights that 99 per cent of the world population breathes air that exceeds WHO air quality limits.
The update also introduces ground measurements of annual mean concentrations of nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), which is a common urban pollutant. As of now, over 6,000 cities in 117 countries are monitoring air quality.

Kaziranga National Park is a protected area in Assam, spread along the Brahmaputra River. The National Park has successfully completed 14th Rhino Census in 2022.
There was increase of 200 one-horned rhinoceros from the 2018 figures even though 400 deaths were recorded mainly due to natural causes. With 903 females, 750 males, juvenile category and calves, the total population of one-horned rhinos is 2,613.

SEBI Chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch launched the ‘Manthan’, a six-week long ideathon, in association with various institutions including BSE, NSE, NSDL, CDSL, KFintech, CAMS, LinkInTime and MCX.
It will facilitate the creation of a set of ideas and innovative solutions related to the securities market in India.

‘Sajibu Nongma Panba’ is a traditional festival for the followers of the Sanamahism religion in Manipur, as a Lunar New Year.
The day is mostly observed on the first day of the lunar month of Sajibu.  Also known as Meetei Cheiraoba or Sajibu Cheiraoba, the festival is celebrated by the Meitei people, one of the largest ethnic communities in Manipur.

The government has launched a new broadcast services website to ensure faster filing and processing of applications for broadcast licenses, permissions and registrations.
The ‘Broadcast Seva Portal’ will help satellite TV channels, teleport operators, MSOs, community radio stations (CRS) and private FM channels. It is also used for tracking applications, calculating fees and making payments.

Gangaur Festival is predominantly celebrated in the state of Rajasthan. Rajasthan Tourism Department organised the festival after two years gap due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The festival commenced on April 3 and continues for 18 days. The Tourism Department of the state has made special arrangements to make the foreign tourists aware of the culture of the state.

Sweden has launched a pilot project to reduce the carbon emissions involved in steel production by switching some of that process from burning coking coal to burning hydrogen.
HYBRIT or Hydrogen Breakthrough Iron-making Technology – is a joint venture between steel giant SSAB, mining company LKAB and Swedish state-owned power firm Vattenfall. As per World Steel Association, every metric ton of steel produced emitted twice that much carbon dioxide.

Indian private sector lender Axis Bank has acquired the Indian consumer banking businesses of US bank Citigroup.
The sale includes businesses of credit cards, retail banking, wealth management and consumer loans for Rs 12,325 crore, as part of plans to exit its retail operations in 13 markets. The sale excludes Citi’s institutional client businesses in India.

US President Joe Biden signed the “Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act” into law, as he made lynching a federal hate crime.
As many as 4,743 persons were lynched between 1882 and 1968, with 3,446 of them being Black. This act was named after the murder of a 14-year-old Black boy from Chicago by a group of White men in Mississippi in 1955 as he was alleged to have whistled at a White woman.

As per the data from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) crossed the 500-crore mark in terms of volume.
In March this year, UPI was close to touching the ₹10-lakh crore milestone in value terms in March this year. There were around 315 banks live on the UPI platform by March this year.

Viktor Orban, Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister has been elected again for the successive fourth term.
The 58-year old pro-Putin leader has been heading the country since 2010. He is also the country’s longest-serving leader since the fall of communism in 1989. In the latest elections, his Fidesz party was set to contril135 seats of the 199-seat Parliament.

The Indian government appointed senior Indian Foreign Service officer Vinay Mohan Kwatra as the new Foreign Secretary.
The 1988-batch IFS officer is currently serving as Ambassador in Kathmandu since January 2020. He worked in Prime Minister’s Office from 2015 to 2017 and had served as India’s ambassador to France. Vinay Kwatra will replace the incumbent Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla.

The Blue Nile, a subsidiary of the Nile River originates at Lake Tana in Ethiopia and travels through Ethiopia and Sudan.
A shipwreck on the Blue Nile River happened in Sudan’s Sennar province has killed 23 people, all of them female. The Blue Nile is an important transport route for people and goods in the African nations.

‘Global Collaboration Advanced Vaccinology Training’ meeting was recently held in Geneva. In the meeting, the need for a basic vaccinology training module for healthcare personnel across the world was discussed.
India was represented by Dr N.K. Arora, head of the Covid-19 working group in the National Immunization Technical Advisory Group (NTAGI). The Group makes vaccine recommendations on the basis of disease burden, efficacy and cost effectiveness.